Rejection
by Josie Gibbons
Summary: a little bit of fluff from everyones favourite Mary and Dillon. romance set about four years after the book...bit patchy


This is an idea that came to me last night. It's a Secret Garden Fic, set when Mary's mid-fourteen and Dickon is just turning sixteen. Sort of modern day-ish because I hate the way the relationships used to be then, because sixteen would have been getting married age at that time. This may be a one shot with a forward, or it may be a full Fic, I haven't decided yet, we'll just have to see how writing it goes.

Disclaimer: I don't own The Secret Garden.

Forward 

After she had helped Colin to walk again Mary was sent away to school. Mr Craven was more than thankful to her for all her help but he knew too that she needed more human company. Spending time with Dickon and Colin was all very well, but there were other things a girl of that age needed, and that other thing was something Mithelswaite was unable to provide. Friendship of other girls was something that could only be achieved in a more derived environment.

She was sent away on the promise that she would return to Mithelswaite in the summer, a promise she made to Dickon without anyone else's knowledge, and a promise made to her by Mr Craven when he sent her away because even he was able to see what good the air on the Moor was doing to her.

Things, however, didn't always work out the way they were planned, and the next time she was due to come home Mr Craven himself arrived at the boarding school where she was a student, to take her on a cruse. And though Mary protested, and though she said she missed the good air of the Moor, she was taken away with himself and Mr Colin, on a holiday that any other child would have been more than grateful for. Meanwhile Mary pinned her summer away, wishing more than anything else that she was back at Mithelswaite, with the wind howling through the house and the flowers blooming all over the moor. She wrote a lot on that holiday, though not much of the writing left her room. Possibly the only exception was a letter she wrote in printed letters to Dickon, which two weeks later found its way into his hands and made him smile, though sadly at that.

_Dearest Dickon,_

I am sorry, but my uncle has taken Colin and me on a holiday to the coast for the summer months. I am complaining about it every day as more than anything I want to be back on the Moor with you and the animals and the garden. I would give anything to be back again, but unfortunately my uncle is ignoring all my protests. Please keep the garden well for me, I wish I was there to help you myself.

There is no chance really of me getting home this year, but I will send word as soon as I possibly can come. Please write to me and tell me news of the moor and of you and your family and the animals. I will be thinking of you,

Yours always,

Mary Lennox

Dickon had been out on the Moor when the first letter had come, and had met the delivery boy with the letter. They'd had a bit of a chat, talking about the weather and the state of the Moor and things they both understood, and then the delivery boy had been on his way and Dickon had been left in peace to read the letter and reflect on things. It was strange, but before Mary Lennox had arrived from India Dickon had held very little interest in anything other than the Moor and the Plants and Animals that grew there. Mary, however, had re-awakened his interest, and naturally he wrote back, as much as he was able to. Though his letter was mostly made up of pictures, it was clear what meaning he was trying to get across. I miss you, the moor isn't the same without your company and your enthusiasm. Please come back and visit us as soon as possible. Your robin hasn't been his-self since you went away to school, and you'd learn a lot more if you were here with us having fun and learning of the things that really matter.

Mary, being her Contrary old self, was delighted by the letter but refused to show it. She knew she would have been better off spending her summer on the moor with her two best friends, but who was she to control that type of thing. Whatever it might have seemed to outsiders she was still the strange little girl from India who didn't really know what was best for her and still wanted to live as she had in India with her Ayla and her servants.

Mary returned to school after the summer with the letter from Dickon firmly in her pocket, folded over and kept as close to her as she could. She told her friends at school of how she had been taken to the sea and had spent a long summer reading and sitting on a beach and having a good time, but to her closest friend she told the truth. Every week that year she wrote home to Dickon, telling him how she was doing, what her friends were doing, and how much she missed the moor. He didn't write back in words, but instead drew her pictures, of the robin in his nest with all his little fledglings flying around him, and of the garden with flowers all over it, and of foxes on the moor in the early morning, and of Mithelswaite with the sun shining of the windows. And once, in one of the envelopes he sent in early spring, he put a pressed flower, a rose, from the garden. Mary cried when she received the rose, and spent the next week hiding in her room complaining of sickness.

The next year there was another problem with getting home, because Mr Craven had decided to go to India and visit the home where Mary had once lived. Mary was obliged to and the sun was said to be good for Colin, though people worried a lot less about what was good for Colin now than they once had. Yet again, Mary wrote home to Dickon, complaining about how she wasn't able to come home, but this time there was an underlying message. She was falling in love with the older boy, and missed him with all her heart. She had been obliged to go with him and give him the tour, as it had just come through that he now owned the house and the surrounding area and so would need to know what to do with it. She had never wished to return to India, as it was a place that held bad memories for her, and she had never loved anyone who used to be there either. England, and Mithelswaite, was her home now, and she never wanted to go back to the place that held nothing but pain and suffering for her.

**Chapter**

Fourteen year old Mary Lennox entered the garden quietly, it had been so long since she'd been back here, and she wondered if the garden would remember her, remember all the time she spent re-making it.

It hadn't changed much in four years, though Mary herself had changed beyond recognition. She was tall now, and had filled out. Her skin was a healthy colour, though not as rosy as it could have been had she been given the right amount of fresh air while she was at school and her hair was long and thick and dark. There was little to suggest that this Mary Lennox was the same as the young girl who had first come to Mithelswaite so long ago, and indeed in many extents she wasn't. She was no longer sullen or sickly, and was independent in many ways. Some people thought in too many ways, as she was very rarely in company of anything other than a bunch of folded and creased pictures, some with a few simple words in them.

She stood silently for several minutes taking in the sight, and then walked along the pathways she had worked so hard in the first year to keep clear and free of grass. The work had continued, but somehow she felt like it was in the was she had originally wanted it, with very little signs of definition between flower beds and most things being aloud to run where they wanted. There was something strangely beautiful, but also sad about the garden, and the way it was so silent.

Mary walked slowly around for several minutes, and then sunk down onto the grass beside the fountain. There were roses growing all over it, and it would have been impossible to tell that there was even a fountain there if it wasn't for the trickling sound of the water running down in the middle.

"He didn't come. But then I didn't expect him too." Mary spoke cheerfully enough, but inside she was bitter. "Has he even been here Mr Robin, or did he forget about you too?" she asked the Robin, and received his normal twittering busy reply. She had missed it in all her years away, and it made her heart hurt even more.

"I thought so, its just me that he doesn't want to see. He has rejected me, like they used to reject me when I was a small child."

The Robin replied with more twitters, and then flew up to the top of the big tree, where he had first sat.

"I don't mind though." Mary continued, "It doesn't bother me, though I wish he hadn't rejected me. Because I miss him, but his happiness is all that matters to me really. He has rejected me, but I hope he is happy for it." she put her head down, and let the tears take her, because he had been the only person she had ever aloud herself to love.

Dickon entered the garden quietly through the moor gate, the same as he always did. He made very little sound, and simply walked his normal path towards the main gate. There was something wrong today though, and he could have sworn he heard a sound, so he stopped to listen, and what he heard filled his heart with wonder.

"He has rejected me, like they used to reject me when I was a small child."

Then the twittering of the Robin. And it was that twittering that made him understand, because the robin only ever spoke to him and to Ben Wetherstaff, and to one other person, a girl who hadn't been in the garden for nigh on four years.

Although he knew it was dishonest, Dickon couldn't resist staying behind the bushes for a few minutes longer; listening to the voice of the girl who he thought had forgotten him forever. Then, when her sobs filled the garden, he risked going forward and talking to her.

"Mary? Don't cry gal, there's no reason to be a crying like that. Aren't you back home now with the moor at your back and the wind blowing through your hair."

"What do you want Colin? Can't you see I'm not in the mood for you right now? I honestly believed he'd come now, when I sent word that I'd be back here."

"Mary. The letter never got through."

"How would you know, Colin. You're just a stupid boy. Same as every boy always is."

Dickon lent forward and gently turned her face round so she could see him, because it hurt her so much to see him in this state.

"I never forgot you, Mary. I came anyway, every day for the past four years. I never forgot you."

"Dickon?" Mary asked. "Oh, are you a dream? This can't be real. You don't, you don't look anything like the Dickon I know."

"You don't look so much as the same yourself, you've changed an awful lot Mary, I wouldn't have recognised you if it hadn't been for mister Robin over there, and that I remembered that he would never talk to anyone save yourself and Ben Wetherstaff like that." the robin twittered his agreement from his perch on the rose tree.

Mary looked at him, and then in one swift movement her arms were around him, holding him to her, and his arms were around her stroking her hair and her back.

"Oh Dickon. I've missed your queer little ways, the whole time I've been away at that horrible school. Have you missed me?"

"I've wanted you here with me from the moment you left." He pulled away and looked into her eyes, then brought her head to his and kissed her gently.

"I love you Mary. Don't ever leave me again."

"I wont." She promised. "Oh Dickon, I won't. I love you."

**THE END**


End file.
